Free PS Elements: Applying borders in Elements

1. Load the photo
What else could you choose for a Valentine card, if not a flower? Maybe balloons or cuddly bears, but we didn’t find such photos in our archive. This picture, however, is spacious enough to endure a strongly visible border. A heart-shaped one, of course.

2. Border color
You have to pick the border color first. You can double-click the foreground/background color picker at the bottom of the toolbar to display the color palette.

However, using a characteristic color from the photo is an even better choice. Click the Eyedropper tool on the Tools palette (or press I), and then click the pixel whose color you want to sample.

3. A solid background
We’ll create a background filled with the chosen color. First, click Layer/New/Layer From Background. Simply click OK on the dialog. Nothing visible has happened, but the original layer of the picture (called Background) has now become editable. This will be important later.

Now click the indicated icon on the Layers palette to create a blank new layer. This will be filled with the chosen color and used as a background.

4. A bucketful of paint
Return to the Tools palette, select the Paint Bucket tool (press K), and click somewhere in the picture. As the upper, hitherto blank layer is active, it is filled with the color you chose. The original picture, hiding in the layer underneath, remains unchanged.

5. Swap
As the pinky would-be-background layer is in the front, and the original photo in the back, we have to swap them. This is where making the Background layer editable becomes important, as this allows you to change its sequence.

Click pinky Layer 1 and drag it below Layer 0. The photo becomes visible and the single-colored background awaits underneath. Click the upper Layer 0.

6. Shapes
Once again, the Tools palette becomes our protagonist. Choose the Cookie Cutter tool this time (or press Q). This enables you to cut out various shapes from the picture, based on templates. As it is Valentine’s Day, choose a heart shape from the Shape dropdown.

Click the upper left corner of the picture and drag a rectangle to the lower right. The handles on the sides and corners of the shape allow you to set its sizes precisely. Press Enter if you’re done, and the selected shape will be cut from the upper layer. The background layer will be visible all around as a border.

7. Happy Valentine’s Day!
If you want to make a greeting card out of the photo with the heart-shaped border, click the Horizontal Type tool on the Tools palette (or press T), choose a font and size you like, and apply a caption to the picture.
Add a dash of e-mail and consume while still hot.

If you have the urge to apply borders on any of the other 364 days of the year, feel free to use this technique with different shapes.